Written In Blood
by Ammaren
Summary: The future of a country is written in blood. Gift fic for Max for the Goldenlake Wishing Tree 2014; AU concerning Briar and Rosethorn's time in Gyongxe and the war they survived. Dark.


**Written In Blood**

Summary: The future of a country is written in blood. Gift fic for Max for the Goldenlake Wishing Tree 2014; AU concerning Briar and Rosethorn's time in Gyongxe and the war they survived. Dark.

* * *

The imperial palace at Dohan is decadent, with lush, sprawling gardens tended to by an army of gardeners. The Emperor speaks to him and Rosethorn, separately, and Briar is told that to be addressed by the Son of the Gods himself is a great honour. Strange he doesn't feel it; Weishu has a deep, pleasant voice, but something lurks in those dark eyes that he can't quite bring himself to trust. Hungry eyes, Briar thinks, and he's see the same on his time of the streets: bigger kids with knives, thinking they can get an extra coin, or some of your gleanings from you.

He'd felt safer in _Chammur_ , of all places.

Because of that, he says little, keeps his gestures and manner as polite and as respectful as possible.

It is only as they walk through the pebbled paths of the imperial gardens that something very startling occurs to Briar. He can _feel_ it here: more than just the plants that barely dare to twitch in his direction, but the deep, ordered sense of sheer, lush, verdant _life_ that permeates the gardens, blazing like fire beneath his eyelids.

The Emperor says, "There is, we are told, _qi_ —the power that binds all things under heaven."

Briar isn't sure where he's going with this, but he nods, politely.

Weishu continues, "It is said that an artful person can arrange all things to enhance and to permit the flow of _qi_. Where the _qi_ is blocked, people fall ill…Emperors make rash decisions, and the kingdom crumbles. It is the way of nature and cannot be denied."

Briar nods again.

"When the _qi_ is enhanced, permitted to flow freely—when architecture and even a simple pleasure garden are arranged in artful ways…then the forces of nature are harnessed in an auspicious fashion," Weishu explains, "And can bring only good fortune to the Empire and all endeavours. The fate of the Empire, _Nanshur_ Briar Moss, is bound up, we think, in these small details."

"I see, your Imperial Majesty," Briar manages. He glances again at the sculpted statues of rock, some of them worn down to appear as the result of water, and wonders what Evvy could tell him about them. The footpath they walk contains a mixture of white and black pebbles, and now he notices that they've been arranged in a pattern meant to soothe the eye. There is the distant murmur of fountains, and plants carefully pruned; willows meant to overlook pavillions inlaid with jade, horse-chestnut trees, and the nightingales of a distant province and…

And a rose bush. An ailing rose bush. Two silver-yellow feathers beside it.

Weishu has stopped, by the bush. His face is thunderous.

Carefully, Briar says, "Your Imperial Majesty…?"

"A dying bush," Weishu says. His voice is still calm, still deep and pleasant. The fire in his eyes; less so. "When two famous _nanshur_ are visiting my gardens. Barely forgiveable under any circumstance. Guards!" He raises his voice, now, and those lingering behind, keeping Briar and their Emperor in sight now stride forward. "Summon the gardeners in charge of this sector of the gardens, and flog them thirty times across the back. And bring me the geomancer—he will answer for this."

Briar, on the other hand, has stepped forward, drawn, by the bush's need. It speaks to him through his green magic, and he kneels down, offering it what it needs. A fungus, he realises, and surely one that the Emperor is familiar with. He understands it's a common threat to plants here, in Yanjing. "Your Imperial Majesty," he says, quietly. "I can treat the plant. It's just a common fungus, probably arrived this morning."

Weishu turns and looks at him, and for a moment, Briar wonders if he's going to be flogged too. There's no reasoning with the anger and wounded pride smouldering in the man's eyes, but the Emperor hauls his temper tightly in check and says, "You do not understand, _Nanshur_ Moss. The gardens are a spiritual anchor for Yanjing, mirroring the the realm in order to bring it into harmony with the forces of _qi_ and the gods. An ailing rosebush is a symptom of discord, a canker eating into the strength of the Empire."

He walks away; his voice drifts back to the guards, calm and collected. "Burn the bush."

* * *

A prosperous spice merchant by the name of Antonin Ileskov is another guest at the imperial palace. Namornese, Briar thinks, instantly, when he first hears Antonin speak. Antonin has a wide, generous smile, and a surprisingly light Namornese accent.

"I occasionally deal in stone," Antonin explains, "In fact, I brought the Emperor the white stone he used for his sculpture—sourced from Namornese quarries. So he has invited me to be his guest for these few weeks. It is different here, no?"

"Very," Briar says, thinking of the burned rose bush, and the gardeners flogged until their backs were a mess of torn flesh and blood running down the thorned branch used to flog them. Or the geomancer, publicly beheaded.

 _You do not understand_ , the Emperor had said. Briar wondered if he wished to.

Rosethorn had been furious when she'd heard about the rose bush, but as Briar pointed out, you just didn't make demands of an Emperor. Requests, perhaps. But never demands.

Even they couldn't fight their way out of a crowd of angered Yanjingyi mages and soldiers.

* * *

Briar is taken by surprise when Jia Jui brings him down to the stables and says, "You know I don't get along that well with horses, right?"

Jia Jui laughs and says, "Well, the Emperor seeks to present you with a suitable gift. While it was suggested that a clipping from the Imperial Gardens might suit you, the Emperor felt that such a gift had already been bestowed upon your teacher. As such, it might not be appropriate to repeat it for the student."

"I wouldn't have minded," Briar informs her. "Trust me."

Still, she leads him to a horse—a bay, with inquisitive eyes, and an appetite for the treats that Jia Jui has him offer. The horse crunches on carrots as Jia Jui says, "This is Taixue. He's the Emperor's gift to you—a very great honour, might I add."

"I don't suppose you'd fill me in?"

"He's a purebred Dexing horse," Jia Jui says, quietly. "He's part of this year's tribute from Dexing, a small kingdom on the border of Inxia and Yanjing. You do not know how fortunate you are, _nanshur_. The Emperor's greatest generals fight for years in the hopes of having a single Dexing horse bestowed on them."

 _An honour I could do without_ , Briar thinks. Still, aloud, he thanks Jia Jui and the Emperor's kindness and generosity, without choking up.

* * *

He catches Evvy two nights later, sneaking out of her quarters with his lockpicks in hand. "Evvy," Briar says, quietly disappointed. "What did you think you were doing?"

"You know this is wrong," Evvy says, mulishly.

He bites on his lip. It is; much of Yanjing doesn't sit well with him, but he can't see what they can do about it. Being mages doesn't mean they have the power to do whatever they want—far from it.

He _likes_ Parahan.

A third voice says, "My friends, the first rule of not getting caught involves not arguing in a corridor. Voices carry, as you should very well know."

Light blooms from an outstretched hand; Antonin stands in the corridor, now, regarding them with a smile. Gone is his merchant's finery—in place of that is faded, nondescript clothing, and the subtle bulges of far too many hidden knives.

"You're not a merchant, are you?" Briar comments, casually.

Antonin says, "We shall save this conversation for somewhere more prudent, yes?"

* * *

The group retires to Evvy's quarters. Antonin gestures at the door and speaks a word; pale light flares and dies down again. "I suppose," Briar says, "That makes you _Viynain_ Antonin."

"True," Antonin acknowledges, with a nod. "I represent…parties in Namorn who might have a common interest."

"You mean the Empress?" Evvy prods.

Briar and Antonin both shoot her a scandalised look. Very wounded, Antonin says, "The Empress Berenine knows nothing of my little…activities. Alas, she would be terribly scandalised and furious to know of my presence here. This is always so, yes?"

Briar rolls his eyes. "Get on with it," he advises Antonin. "That playacting isn't fooling anyone."

"Very well," Antonin says, briskly. "Here are things as they stand. The Yanjingyi army, as you already know, is marching on Gyongxe. They've just managed to successfully conquer Inxia. I understand you have friends in Gyongxe and do not wish to see them subjugated. The interests I represent do not want Yanjing free to turn its unhindered attentions on the Namornese border."

 _Of course_ , Briar thinks. That's what it all comes down to.

"So," he says, folding his arms across his chest, "I assume you're prepared to free Parahan?"

Antonin grins and nods. "Clever, yes? I intend to free the prince and to see him back to his kingdom. A little aid could despose his uncle and place a furious tiger behind Gyongxe, destabilising the balance of power in the region to one slightly more hostile to Yanjing. Nothing can be done for Inxue at this point in time, sadly." He looks at the two of them. "And you—you can warn Gyongxe to prepare their forces. The Emperor will send all he has at them."

He flicks out a jewelled dagger and passes it to Briar, hilt-first. "Take this."

Briar blinks. "What?" he asks. He raps it lightly against the table and then realises that the hilt is hollow. Antonin shows him how to work the mechanism open. Inside the hilt is concealed a piece of paper. He draws it out, unfolds it, and lets out a low whistle.

"This is all I have," Antonin says, quietly. "Troop dispositions, numbers, manoeuvres…I couldn't get as much as I would like, but doubtless, this will be of some value to certain friends of yours."

He stands up. "Well, then. I advise you to go back to sleep, and to set off two days after, or so. Give me some time to escape with my cargo and for the Yanjingyi to see that you couldn't possibly have anything to do with his disappearance."

"Oh, we will," Briar says, softly. He fully intends to make use of that time.

* * *

They ride for Gyongxe, slipping in through the treacherous Ice Lion pass ahead of Yanjingyi scouts. Briar pauses for a moment, reins in Taixue, and looks back.

Almost, on the breeze, he can hear the distant thunder of hooves; the steady tread of hobnailed boots, the rolling boom of Yanjingyi war drums.

"What are you doing?" Rosethorn demands. Stress draws her lips tight with worry and displeasure.

"Checking," Briar says. He heels Taixue, and they carry on, racing against time to carry the news to the dedicates of the First Circle Temple.

* * *

The war drags long past autumn and into winter, and then the spring melt. The Yanjingyi army assaults passes made treacherous by fallen snow; Briar helps trigger avalanches, watches from a distance as men and women and horses scream and are smothered or freeze to their deaths in the bitter cold and thinks, _this is war_.

Gyongxe is a small country, much smaller than Yangjing, and the Emperor's army is a horde of distant fires, seen by the last light of the dying sun, as they make camp by the blocked passes, seeking to dig their way through. "Relax," Dedicate Tenzin tells him, as they watch the thousand campfires from the great mountain at dusk. She glances and him and adds, "This war's been a long time coming, _Nanshur_ Briar. We've had more than enough time to prepare some surprises of our own."

"But is it _enough_?" Briar wants to know. The cookfires stretch to the distant horizon and he thought Tenzin's avalanche traps _worked_ but for all the Yanjingyi soldiers killed, more keep coming.

"We do what we can," Tenzin says quietly, "Beneath the eye of the gods." she touches her thumb to her lips, a curious gesture that Briar marks out and notes, "What else can one do, in these times?"

* * *

In a few weeks, General Hengkai grows impatient, or perhaps he'd been waiting all along for his artillery to arrive—Briar never really finds out which. He wakes one night, to the stench of boom dust and sulphur, to a roar that reverberates through their tents on the mountainside, to the triumphant pounding of the Yanjingyi wardrums, shattering the cool silence.

Dedicate Tenzin looms over him, packing up their gear in quick, practised movements. "Time to go," she says, noticing that he's awake. "They've broken through. They're coming."

* * *

They fight a rearguard action, from the very beginning. Gyongxe doesn't have a professional army in the same sense that Yangjing does, and while the tribesmen fight, the forces of the tribal chiefs aren't accustomed to working together. So they lay traps.

Briar works with a few other dedicates—including Dedicate Tenzin—to dam up the Snow Serpent River. The work is difficult, and Rosethorn is elsewhere, on some duty from First Dedicate Dokyi. In her absence, he coaxes the wooden boards of the dam to full strength, talks them into holding back the building strength of the river. Dedicate Tenzin lays charms on it too; carves the wood and murmurs to it, tapping out a rhythm he can't quite follow.

"The old ways are sometimes best," she murmurs, when Briar glances at her quizzically.

Still, before they dam the river, Tenzin sets out steamed buns and fruit from the stores, and lights a few sticks of incense and tells him they won't be starting until the next day.

"Why?" Briar wants to know.

Tenzin says, almost-conversationally, "Do you know how old the First Circle Temple is?"

Briar racks his brains—sunlight on the mountain, years before the days of smoke and the song of the wardrums and the horns calling all men to battle—"No," he finally says, ruefully. "First Dedicate Dokyi mentioned it before, but…"

"It was built in the time of my many-times-great grandmother," Tenzin answers. She stares at the Snow Serpent River, her gaze distant. "And as we tell our students—look around you, _Nanshur_."

He did.

In almost any direction you looked in Gyongxe, you saw the distant mountains. Above, the glimmer of stars. Thin air, the wind cutting like a knife. Wrapped in his fleece jacket, but feeling the cold nip at his exposed cheeks, Briar thinks ruefully that he shouldn't have shaved. And then, in the continuing silence—he feels the first hints of it: that which he felt the first time he rode into Gyongxe with Rosethorn and Evvy.

Wonder.

You could not help but feel it; a sense of distance from the petty concerns of the day—as though the mountains allowed you, just for the span of those moments, to step outside the ordinary passage of time as you took in their immensity.

"The mountains, the rivers, the plains," Tenzin says. "They were ancient when men cut the first stones to build the first Living Circle Temple in Gyongxe—the first temple to Tuhengri Stormlord there ever was. But we did not always revere the Living Circle in Gyongxe. A long time ago, _Nanshur_ , there were older things that our ancestors worshipped—we call them the little gods, the gods of the mountains, of the rivers, and of the plains and gorges."

The wind seems just a little colder; the song of the rushing river, a little deeper. Briar shivers and tugs his jacket firmly around him.

"There are old stories about armies that tried to invade Gyongxe," Tenzin says, finally, into the watchful silence that grows around them. "The God-King and the people approached the little gods and asked for their aid in defending their land. When the soldiers tried to drink, the rivers rose up and drowned them. When they tried to use the mountain paths, snow and rocks came loose and buried them. And when they entered the plains, the earth gave way beneath them, and they were never seen again."

Briar glances at the clear, swift waters of the Snow Serpent River. "Oh," he says. That is all he can manage.

"But they are just stories," Tenzin concludes. "Even so, centuries after the Living Circle has spread across Gyongxe, we still remember. And we still ask of the little gods before we do something drastic, like damming up the river."

He remembers, now, the wooden food-baskets Tenzin carried up the mountain when they went to set off an avalanche to block the Ice Lion pass. More offerings, to the little gods of the mountains.

Bit by bit, they are retreating, forcing the Yangjingyi army to pay for the land it gains, engaging them only at strategic points. Impatience mingles with dread; the forces of Yanjing have their own loose companies of tribesmen, who are used to this kind of warfare. The last trap resulted in too many dead; too many people Briar knew and would never see again.

"We could use your help right now," he murmurs to the river, unsure if anyone at all is listening.

* * *

The Gyongxin army, along with the tribal chiefs gather and bottles up the Yanjingyi army in the valley, only to break the dammed river. The Snow Serpent River, swollen with the spring melt, rips through the valley, drowning Yangjingyi forces and the holding forces from Gyongxe. Briar sits on Taixue and watches as men drown; bloodied bodies bobbing up and down on the muddy current, with bits of broken gravel and scarlet washing the water red, bobbing arrowheads and spears and swords.

 _This is war_ , he thinks again, dully. People die, all the time.

By the time the raging headwaters of the Snow Serpent River have quieted, with the help of Gyongxin shamans, they find bodies scattered miles away, stacked like cordwood, ribs smashed like brittle sticks from the force of the river.

For the next few nights, Briar dreams of a river of blood, the dead bobbing endlessly, and then he's drowning in blood, feeling it clog up his lungs, and wakes up screaming.

* * *

Weeks later, Parahan and Antonin arrive, riding at the head of a relief army. Now, they're free to take the fight to the Yanjingyi army: Briar signs up with the forces meant to disrupt the Yanjingyi army from the rear, preventing them from bringing their artillery to bear.

Wooden boards meant to be the carts conveying Yanjingyi cannon swell, turn into towering trees; the metal cannons groan and warp beneath their force.

Taixue is steady; Briar learns to ride the Gyongxin way, reins wrapped around his saddle horn, guiding the horse with his knees, leaving his hands free to throw the wrapped packets of plant seeds that form his weapons in battle. In his off-hand, he wields a spear. He's more comfortable with a staff, but as Tenzin points out, this _is_ war and a spear is just a staff with a pointy end.

That, at least, is the same.

He makes his first battle kill on one of these sallies, running through a soldier barely more than a boy; brown Yanjingyi eyes wide with terror, far too young for this. Briar rips the spear free, hammers the blunt end across the temples of someone riding up to attack him and kicks Taixue into a gallop, meant to take him far, far away from the Yanjingyi army.

His dreams aren't always about the river or the mountain pass now. Sometimes, he's run through by a spear, only to realise he's staring into his own eyes, hearing the clamour and shriek of battle all around him.

* * *

The Yanjingyi army gets smarter, after the first few raids. A glint of steel is all the warning Briar gets, before they find themselves all surrounded. The ambush is surgical and well-planned: Yanyingji skirmishers have hidden to the side, waited for the Gyongxin raiding party to ride in to attack the cannon, and then fallen in behind them, blocking off all escape routes.

But Tenzin has rehearsed them for this possibility. "Break!" she cries, as loud as she can, and lights up the wooden tubes by snapping her fingers. She flings the tubes as far as she can, leans forward over her horse, and kicks him into motion. The tubes explode with loud cracks and bangs and dark smoke, startling both their horses and those ridden by their ambushers. Briar obeys; he ducks the swing of a Yanjingyi sword as he rides full-tile towards the soldier, whips his spear around and clubs the man in the side of the head. The fool isn't even wearing a proper helmet—serves him right, Briar thinks, smugly.

They slip out, as much as they can, forcing open gaps in the blocking forces. They pay a heavy price to do so. Briar turns back in the saddle and hurls one of his cloth balls at the enemy forces, but in the chaos of the fighting, it's hard to see who needs help, and it seems the other side has a mage as well—fire eats through the plants as fast as he can bring them up. He feels the heat of the flames as though they were burning _him_ and cries out; he doesn't know if it is in anger or pain.

"Go! Go!" Tenzin shouts into his ear, coming up beside him. She hits him, once, enough to jerk him out of that trance state. The ragged remnants of Tenzin's raiding party flee, licking their wounds. It doesn't take the Yanjingyi very long to send riders in hot pursuit.

Clinging on to Taixue, Briar can't help but think that the war is steadily going against them.

* * *

There are other Living Circle Temples in Gyongxe. The Sky Circle Temple is just a few centuries younger than the First Temple in Garmashing. Novice Renzi's boots are worn out; his feet are raw and bleeding, he needs treatment for mild frostbite and for exhaustion, and they can offer him none of that immediately as the news he bears is important. Important enough that he's ridden a horse to death for it. He is nervous; understandably so, considering the circumstances.

Briar's blood freezes in his veins. This is war, he thinks, the same litany he's been reciting to himself at the latest horror, having to bury it in his heart to go on. But this—this is a burden that threatens to break him.

"Sky Circle has fallen," Renzi reports, glumly. Dedicate Tenzin is both horrified and furious; Parahan says nothing. Antonin shakes his head, tiredly. Rosethorn—Rosethorn buries her head in her hands.

Evvy was at Sky Circle.

Briar's world begins to crumble.

"Sky Circle is—was well-positioned to defend against an assault," Antonin says, steepling his fingers. "It had an adequate number of Fire Dedicates prepared to defend it and supplies intended to withstand a siege. _And_ ," he adds, with a very real sense of indignation that they all share, "It's a _temple_ , for the love of Asaia Bird-Winged! _No one_ attacks a temple in war." That was why they'd been evacuating civilians—the old, the infirm, children—into lightly-garrisoned temples.

That was why they'd sent Evvy there. It was partly, Briar admits, now, because he has to be brutally honest, because he thought she'd be safe there. Because he was trying to protect her. And yet it was, in part, because of her abilities. Sky Circle was built high in the mountains, with old, strong walls of stone. Sky Circle, it was said, had never fallen to any attacking force before, though only bandits went up against a Living Circle temple. He'd expected Evvy to be as good as two warrior-dedicates, there.

Evvy. A stone fist clenches his heart.

"Well," Briar says, because he has to say something, "They have, now." He walks out of the room, ignoring the generals and the high-ups, and finds somewhere private and sits there.

He bites his cheek until it bleeds, because if he screams, he thinks he'll never stop. He's hollow inside: the cry will echo again and again and again and Evvy's dead.

* * *

"Revenge," Rosethorn tells him, as he stabs his spear into a straw training target again and again, "Is as bad for the one practising it as the one it's practised upon, Briar."

He gulps tea from his flask—thick, with yak butter stirred into it, the way the Gyongxin drink it—and doesn't say anything.

Finally, because he owes her an answer—because she's _Rosethorn_ —he says, "They killed Evvy."

Rosethorn doesn't tell him that she saw his handiwork: the cluster of swift-growing sharp thorns and the human fruit impaled on it until flesh explodes; until all that hangs in the thorns is a gruesome mess. Instead, she says, "All of them?"

It's easier the second time, Briar thinks. The first time he'd killed someone on a cluster of swift-growing thorns, it was to get to Evvy and to rescue her. And now…

A sharp pain in his ear—Rosethorn's got a hand on his ear, and she twists it, hard. "They killed other people," Briar reminds her, still stubborn. "Evvy wasn't the only one at Sky Circle."

Rosethorn's face twists with pain. "I _know_ ," she replies, fiercely. "I knew some of the dedicates there. But how many of them do you think were given a choice about it? Between serving the Emperor and joining the army or watching their families punished?"

"I don't want to hear it."

"I'm going to treat the wounded," she says. "If you don't want to come, I'll understand."

He doesn't realise she's left until he hears cloth rustle; until Parahan says, "You need to brace yourself better."

Briar looks at him.

Parahan takes the spear from him. "I've been taught to use a spear since I was a boy," he says. "Child's play. Now look, when you thrust with your spear, you need to brace yourself like this." He showed Briar how his hands moved as he placed the thrust accurately on the chalk dummy. "Right now, you're just stabbing it any way you like. Your footwork is good, but that's not very helpful when you're facing someone more heavily armoured than their scouts or infantry. Makes it easy for your spearpoint to slip down. Worse, you lose your grip on that spear, and then you're in for it."

"I'll have you know that not all of us grew up learning how to stab people with spears," Briar retorts.

"Better late than never," Parahan advises. "Although, if you're planning to stab your way through the Emperor's army, one by one, you should probably get started sometime soon. Oh, and there's a question you should answer." He tosses the spear to Briar, who, despite being startled, just barely manages to catch it.

"What?" Briar wants to know.

"How many?" Parahan asks, quietly. "How many will you kill before it's enough for you?" He walked out of the practise tent, without bothering to wait for an answer.

* * *

The lessons from the fall of Sky Circle are two: first, this war with Yanjing is harsh and cruel. Gxyongxin troops capture some spies or villagers of Yanjingyi ethnicity—it's never very clear, and the border was porous in the past—and execute them. General Sayrugo is both furious and resigned: the squads responsible are put in the vanguard in battle, and sent wherever the fighting is at its most furious and brutal. "I don't expect them to live," she says, tiredly, when Rosethorn confronts her. "That's the best I can do. We don't have enough soldiers that I can afford to throw away squads by executing them."

The second lesson from the fall of Sky Circle is that the Yanjingyi mages are skilled with both their flamboyant battle magic and more subtle spells. That General Hengkai has the might of the Yanjingyi war mages at his disposal and will not hesitate to squander it.

Sky Circle falls though sleeping spells. It's something they learn only later: after their camp is raided at night, the sentries standing watch all immobilised by carefully laid spells that whisper weariness and comforting slumber. (He will learn later that fully half the encamped Gyongxin army is slaughtered in their sleep, before some of the Gyongxin shamans among the tribesmen manage to break free of the sleeping spells and flee with the survivors, covering their tracks with hasty illusion spells.) Briar is among those taken prisoner; by the time he wakes up, rubbing at his eyes, he finds himself tightly bound up in a ruined encampment, on a field of dead bodies with throats carefully slit in the dark.

Enough to make him want to throw up.

"So, we meet again, _Nanshur_ Moss," Jia Jui says, offering him a pleasant nod. "If only it had been under more auspicious circumstances."

Briar considers spitting, changes his mind. "Well," he says, "What now?"

Jia Jui folds her arms across her chest. "You will be left in the care of my colleague, _Nanshur_ Yuande," she says, simply, gesturing, with a movement of her head, to the man who stands at the side. He does not wear the signature wooden-or-stone beads of the Yanjingyi imperial mages—that itself raises warning flags for Briar.

The only wood he carries on him that Briar can sense is a single, wooden sword, made of peach wood, for some reason Briar can't fathom. Yuande walks up to him and carefully attaches two talismans at his shoulder—strips of yellow paper with scrawled black Imperial characters on it.

Briar tries to reach out and tug at the them, but he can't. They're stuck fast. He scowls and tries reaching out for his green magic either, but there's nothing there.

That's impossible, he thinks. Discussions with Rosethorn about the distinctions between ambient and academic magic come to mind. Ambient magic can't be blocked; that Yuande is carrying a wooden sword that Briar _can't_ sense is both impossible and worrying.

And then he wonders, crossly, if that was exactly how academic mages felt everytime he'd done something _they_ thought impossible with his ambient magic. And he'd gone and thought himself so clever, that the Yanjingyi mages, for all their education, are still really just academic mages, with similar weaknesses and blind spots.

This time, though, the tables are turned.

Yuande offers him an urbane bow; his smile, however, is sharp. "I will enjoy our conversations," he promises, and Briar sucks in a breath and hopes that he can find and take an opportunity to escape.

* * *

Yuande doesn't flog him.

Briar expects torture—has heard other prisoners cry out in pain as the Yanjingyi thorned rod rips strips up their back, but perhaps they don't expect the wooden rod to work on him, even though they've cut off access to his magic.

He tries again and again to remove the talismans, to discover some gap in them that he can exploit—some blindness to ambient magic—but comes up empty each time.

Instead, Yuande…talks.

"You must know, _Nanshur_ Moss," he says one day, over a Yanjingyi celadon cup, "I have nothing but the utmost respect for mages of your kind."

Briar eyes him. "You have a funny way of showing it," he says, evenly. "Was killing Evvy the Yanjingyi way of showing just how much they respected her?"

As always, he surreptiously tugs at the talisman. The yellow paper crinkles, but doesn't budge. "You are a prisoner," Yuande says, unruffled. "For you, _Nanshur_ Moss, the war is over. It is a mark of the Emperor's esteem—and mine—that you have been treated with courtesy. I would not advise you to…test things." For a moment, Briar is surprised to see a flicker of fear in the mage's eyes, but then, Yuande composes himself and goes on. "The Eagle of the Heavens is not known for his patience or unconditional compassion. For what it's worth, I am sorry about your student. It sounds as though she was a credit to your teachings."

Bloody sunlight, Briar grouses. It's the way they'd positioned him—staring into the bright sunlight behind Yuande, his eyes water, still. He isn't some kid to go bleating just because…because Evvy's gone.

He draws a trembling breath. "So what do you want, then?" Briar demands. His hands have been bound by silk cord—an honour, again, he's told. They've restrained him as minimally as possible. All he can think is that if he were Sandry, he'd have slipped those in seconds.

Homesickness. It wells up in him at the strangest of times, a stranger in a strange land, fighting a war that isn't his, Evvy dead and no idea about what's happened to Rosethorn.

"To talk," Yuande says, simply. "I am your keeper, but nothing more. I'm not here to _interrogate_ you, _Nanshur_ Moss. It's been determined by our informants that you simply aren't in a position to give us the information we actually need."

That stings.

"Really, _Nanshur,_ " Yuande says, "There's simply no call to be uncivilised, for all that we're in the middle of a war."

Briar thinks: of soldiers drowning in mud as the Snow Serpent River sweeps them off their feet, of frostbite and hundreds of men and women smothered in snow, of soldiers screaming and holding in their guts in bloodied hands and more. He can't quite work up the moisture to spit.

"You're bleat-brained crazy," he informs Yuande, reverting back to the street slang he grew up with. He can't think of any expletive, any way of expressing his disgust and his general _exhaustion_ better than that. "You're…" Evvy would've called him a _zernamus_.

 _How many?_ Parahan had asked him. Suddenly, all Briar can think of is his revulsion, of wanting to get away from the war and the killing.

"Good evening, _Nanshur_ Moss," comes the reply. Yuande stands up, but before he leaves, he adds, "I thought you might be interested to know: our forces met and crushed the Gyongxin army on the Gnam Runga plain. The war is drawing to an end."

* * *

The war does in fact wind down; the Yanjingyi war machine marches on, inexorable, to the steady beating of the war drums.

Briar learns later that the Gyongxin shamans _did_ manage to engage the little gods of the rivers and plains in battle; the earth opens and swallows entire squads of Yanjingyi soldiers and the river swells and drowns them as they attempt to ford it to flank the Gyongxin army.

"And then," Antonin informs him, wiping away blood from a nasty scratch above his eye, "They sent out their mages, of course." He looks at Briar's expression and says, patiently, "They have their own tribesmen, _Viynain_. Shamans schooled in the old ways, far to the north in Yanjing. Folk magic, we call it in Namorn. It is difficult to bleed out the raw force of an elemental. Nature cannot be so easily restrained—yes, I know, mages die trying. But there are ways. Dangerous, but they can be done."

Briar blinks, and says, "I have a mate who tried to control the tides. She spent the next few days feeling sick."

"You don't _stop_ an elemental," Antonin says. "You bind it, bleed its strength and drain it dry. It reforms after years, of course, angrier, but weakened." His expression turns distant. "I'd hate to be a tribesman on the Gnam Runga, years from now."

"They're just elementals then?" Briar asks, dryly.

Antonin shrugs. "Who can say?" he notes. "Imagine how powerful, how majestic these forces must have appeared to the early folk in Gyongxe. Yesterday's gods, _Viynain_ , are today's natural forces. We understand a lot more today, or so we say. An avalanche is the disturbance of accumulated snow in the mountains; a scholar in Lightsbridge is working on a theory accrediting the passage of the tides to the moon. The gods-the little gods of Gyongxe, _Viynain_ , have been killed by the continuous advance of knowledge. That's just how it is." He shrugs haplessly at the look on Briar's face. "I'm hardly a Lightsbridge scholar. Ask Petrov Thundercaller sometime, if you dare. He knows all about synthesising folk magic practices in the world we live in." He makes a face. "I can't believe I just said that…"

They exchange similar glances; Antonin says, "Good luck."

"What will you do?"

"What will I do? Fight, I suppose," Antonin says, rubbing at his eyes. "Join the Gyongxin remnants in making them pay for every inch of control they exert over Gyongxe. I hear your friend Parahan has offered the God-King a place of refuge in his kingdom." His eyes gleamed. "The hammer of Yanjing will soon fall on the kingdoms of the sun."

"And far from Namorn," Briar observes, wryly.

Antonin says nothing, merely taps his long nose. "Time will tell," he says, finally. "Time will tell."

* * *

He's turned loose, set on the road to Garmashing, in an exchange of prisoners. From what Briar is told, the Gyongxin remnants launched a daring raid, in which Jia Jui and one or two of the Emperor's adjutants have been taken prisoner and subdued by Gyongxin shamans.

Yuande speaks two words, and the talismans attached to Briar flare up and crumble to ash. All of a sudden, he _hears_ it again: the abundance of green life around him, bursting into his awareness.

He's unaware of how much he misses his ambient magic until it's restored to him. And as he stumbles forward on the road…

Evvy is there to meet him.

Briar isn't aware of the tears running down his cheeks, until her head is resting against his chest, until he's bent down and hugged her as much as he can, as _tightly_ as he can.

"Don't ever scare me like that again, you bleat-brain," he whispers, fiercely. "You understand?"

She nods. Tears fill her eyes. "I thought you were dead," she murmurs. "And they killed my cats."

He doesn't know what to say, so he holds her, doesn't want to let go. Around them, the Gyongxin world begins to crumble.

* * *

The Yamani war drums continue, an ominous pounding in the distance. Briar watches from the stone walls of Garmarshing. Antonin has taken his leave.

"It's over," Tenzin says, quietly.

He looks at her.

"It's true," she says, simply. "Gnam Runga was our last throw of the dice, _Nanshur_ —Briar," she corrects, at his pointed stare. "We could have made them pay in blood for every inch of Gyongxin soil they took, but in the end, we had to stand and fight them _somewhere_. Hengkai knew this. He sacrificed his men, gambling on the hope we'd have to stop and fight him head-on, when he made a push for Garmashing, where most of the refugees fled. We fought, and we lost. The army is destroyed."

"Not all of them."

"I know," Tenzin says, but he's never seen her so _tired_ , so resigned before. "General Sayrugo managed to save some of them, but most of them are _here_ , now, if not scattered into the countryside. We're going to make one last stand, here, to buy whatever time we can for the refugees to leave and to find somewhere…safer."

She presses his hand, lightly. "Go, Briar," she says. "Thank you for fighting with us. But it isn't your place to die here. I've already spoken to Rosethorn—she's agreed to leave by morning."

"This is how it ends?" Briar asks, anger choking his throat. Anger and helplessness, both. "That _zernamus_ in Yanjing gets what he wants?"

Tenzin bows her head. "We fought," she says. "That's all that matters. We lost. Some of the generals will continue the fight; we'll harrass them as they try to consolidate their power and control over Gyongxe. And perhaps someday, we'll take it all back. But right now, we must save what can be saved. General Sayrugo wasn't willing to throw away a city of refugees to save Gyongxe. And now, I must do the same."

"So, it's goodbye, then."

"It is," she says. She swats at him. "Now go. I have plenty of preparations to make. Garmashing isn't the best place to withstand a siege."

* * *

Garmashing falls in the night.

This time, Briar's falling, through an ocean of mist and blood, wading through a swamp filled with the corpses of slain Yanjingyi soldiers, a forest of dead hands pulling at him, trying to drown him, until he slashes at them, his hands turned to hooked briar thorns.

He wakes up, his mind still fuzzy from sleep, and then he hears the feverish pounding of Yanjingyi wardrums, the sharp, shrill blasts of the battle trumpets and the unmistakeable sounds of steel skirling on steel and realises that they're under attack. "Rosethorn!" he shouts, trying to shake her awake. "Evvy!"

He lays a hand on Rosethorn and another on Evvy, blasts the sleep spell apart with the strongest tendrils of green magic he can muster, wrapping vines around the murmur of the sleep spells and ripping them apart.

Rosethorn's eyes open first. "You better have a good reason for this," she says, yawning.

"Listen," Briar hisses. "They're attacking us, right now."

Rosethorn is _awake_ , now, all traces of spell-induced wooziness slipping away. "Grab your pack and magekit," she says, "Now. We're leaving. Leave everything else behind."

Evvy blinks awake, now. He tells her the same things—Luvo is unresponsive, and he doesn't know how to wake him. "Get Luvo," he adds. "We have to go. Now."

The warning gongs are sounding, only now. Perhaps some shaman has managed to blunt the force of the Yanjingyi sleep spells. Dedicates are scrambling to their feet; some are searching for weapons, some are screaming and trying to flee. No, he realises, some of them are panicked civilians, crying out in dialects that aren't _tiyon_.

He breathes smoke; somewhere, something has been set on fire.

Evvy is at his side now, Luvo in his sling, her eyes grave.

"We're ready," he tells Rosethorn. He shoulders his pack—by now, it's habit to sleep with it, and they've packed for the morning's journey, unexpectedly pushed forward by the attack on Garmashing.

She gives him a curt nod. "Move," she says, and they begin to weave their way through the tide of frightened people. Briar keeps a tight grip on Evvy. They're not getting separated this time, he thinks. To lose Evvy in the middle of a city being attacked is to abandon her to the hands of the Yanjingyi. He won't let that happen again.

"What about—"

"Tenzin's doing the best she can," Briar says. He doesn't look back.

It is the only thing he can do, for friends lost and left behind, now.

* * *

It is a long road, back to Narmorn, and then to Emelan, and to Winding Circle.


End file.
